What is going on with Silverlight? Microsoft's browser plugin was conceived as a lightweight, cross-platform version of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), the .NET application framework for desktop applications introduced in Windows Vista. Silverlight was energetically developed to compete with Adobe's Flash, there was talk …

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Opinions matter

In my not so humble opinion, anyone who uses or depends upon Silverlight, is out of their farking minds! It is not cross-platform, it is not built to an open standard (which Microsoft's version of HTML 5 is not), and Microsoft's track record in supporting any OS other than their own leaves a lot to be desired! Myself, I will not use it, support it, or recommend to any of my clients that they do either!

I hear ya

but you sound a little extreme, i don't see why any commercial closed platform software company which provides an end to end solutions should help their rivals and support their systems as well as their own.

Commercial companies aim to become monpolies.

I also would consider not reccommending SilverLight as a solution to an organisation, however it comes down to the business requirements, if the best solution for a set of requirements points towards it then in not to reccomend it when it could be the only viable solution would be unprofessional

no title required!!!

I have to agree, by making it essentially solely for their own operating systems they have effectively killed it as a development platform. I did start doing some experimental stuff in SilverLight but will now shelve that.

Silverlight 5: a solution looking for a problem to solve.

Microsoft advocates take note: listing the features of Silverlight 5 does not guarantee uptake. They need to identify problems domains where Silverlight kicks the asses of the competition - HTML5, Adobe, and/or more "conventional" web frameworks based on PHP, Java, Python or Ruby.

This is what Microsoft should be asking itself, because that's what the customers will be asking each other. Is Silverlight faster than tech X? Does it support more concurrent connections? it cheaper and quicker to deploy? Is development time less? What controls does it support over and above standard HTML forms, and are they really necessary?

Seriously, a feature like "Silverlight can now display multiple windows when running trusted and out of the browser" leaves me pretty underwhelmed. Can't you do that with JavaScript one point oh? In fact, isn't it so easy to perform this action that there is a technology called AdBlocking assisting users to prevent this from happening?

Silverlight has its place

Used in their own products?

Frikkin' hell, so you now might have to start installing the Silverlight shit on to servers, as well as the inumerable versions of the damn .Net frameworks, just to run some of their enterprise apps?? More bloatware increasing potential security holes, bugs, patching requirements, etc...

Silverlight vs JavaFX vs NaCl vs Flash vs Widgets

The "trusted" stuff is very nice for deploying to desktops where you don't want people installing stuff. This is very similar to old Java apps of yore and you can imagine certain use cases for this especially with small form factor devices: apps for Windows Tablet. And we all know what happened to those "build once, run anywhere" sandboxed Java apps: they died apart from for browser based videoconferencing and even then they generally suck - I repeatedly have trouble with WebEx and Sametime on corporate networks and they both have a huge list of browsers they don't support. Hello? I thought this was a browser-based application?

But the space is getting very crowded. Adobe already has AIR, Oracle will probably force feed Java FX to selected whale clients and Google owns the infrastructure for NaCl. Widgets look well-placed to pick up where extensions have left off in terms of cross-platform support: it is pretty easy to port an extension between Chroma, Safari and Opera and then knock it into a widget - low barrier to entry and multi-platform heaven.

YOU SHOULD!

No I shouldn't. Five years ago I was at a meeting at client's office chit chatting with their tech lead. So he asked, are you guys looking at the Silverlight yet? I said, no, not yet, it doesn't seem so hot at the mo... "YOU SHOULD! He he he he..", he quickly interrupted trying to portray how they're cutting edge because they're 'looking into it". Well I was left unimpressed by Silverlight, haven't find a time to look into it yet, and I don't think I will any time soon.